WASHINGTON (AP/WSVN) — President Joe Biden will observe the 22nd anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil at an Alaska military base with service members and their families, the White House announced.
Biden will not participate in any of the observances at 9/11 memorial sites in New York City, Virginia or Pennsylvania. Instead, the president will stop in Alaska for a Sept. 11 observance at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on his way back to Washington from Asia.
The commander in chief is currently in Vietnam wrapping up the Group of 20 summit.
Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in the annual observance at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan.
Her husband, Doug Emhoff, will attend events at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
First lady Jill Biden will lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.
Terrorists hijacked commercial airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, and flew them into the Twin Towers in New York’s financial district and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks. Biden was a U.S. senator at the time.
It will not be the first time that a president has not attended annual observances at any of the three sites.
In 2015, President Barack Obama participated in a moment of silence on the White House lawn before going to Fort Meade in Maryland to recognize the military’s work protecting the country.
In 2005, President George W. Bush marked the anniversary on the White House lawn.
